


At the bottom of the kaleidoscope

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Nip/Tuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:57:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1637750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's still Annie, but everyone else's story keeps changing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the bottom of the kaleidoscope

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Meadow Lion

 

 

Annie doesn't sleep much anymore.

Her room in the new apartment is very small. Her bed nearly fits one whole wall and her desk is wider than the window it's shoved under. The window itself looks down on the complex's parking lot. When she lies in bed at night not sleeping, the car alarms that hoot and trill and shriek are jungle animals circling, closing in. Green- and silver-eyed beasts calling to each other as they hunt her.

At her dad's house, things were different. Her room was different, better; everything was different. Her room was so dark and quiet at night that it was an island floating gently on a sea of clouds, rocking her to sleep.

Mommy used to tuck her in after Annie's bath, kissing her forehead and reciting the very end of every _Madeline_ story like a charm: _That's all there is, there isn't any more._

In most stories, a kiss wakes you up. Sometimes it changes you from a frog to a prince. But the nightly bedtime kiss made Annie sleepy; it smelled like the bath, vanilla and Oil of Olay, and Mommy would cup her cheek and wish her good dreams.

Then Daddy would come in and the bed would creak under him as he got comfortable and opened that night's book. They used to read a chapter a night. History books, _The Story of the Annes_ , all about famous women with her name, and story books, _Little House in the Big Woods_ and _Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator_. His voice was nice as he read, soft, the words sounding like the story was his own, not like he was reading them off the page.

They were only on chapter four of _The BFG_ when Mom took Annie away to the new apartment.

Sometimes these days Dad remembers to call the apartment at 7:30 and read to her. But his voice is different over the phone, scratchier, far away. He stops a lot and asks her if it's all right, if she likes this. He never used to interrupt the story.

"It's a good story, Daddy," she will say then. She doesn't think he should worry so much, but she's not listening very carefully, either.

Annie tells herself that she's too old for bedtime stories. She _is_ a woman now and she doesn't need stories. She bleeds. She braids her own hair in the morning while Mommy sleeps in. She packs her own lunch and makes up her own history.

But sometimes, most of the time, Annie just wants everything the way it used to be. Bedtime now happens when Mommy remembers to tell her to go. Sometimes, that's very late and Annie is already half-asleep. Curled up on the couch, she keeps her eyes closed and listens to the TV whine and the clink-and-slurp rhythm of Mommy's white wine.

She makes up her own stories now.

Annie is a captive in the jungle.

Annie is held prisoner by an Ice Witch.

Annie is in exile, a princess lost in the woods who can't find her way back to the palace.

Whatever the story, she has to believe that she is here by mistake. The Ice Witch drinks pale-golden melted snow that stinks and enchants, entraps, Annie. Or maybe Prince Matthew did something that catches her here. He definitely did _something_ , she is sure of that, but it was the Ice Witch who stole her away.

There once was a palace filled with light. Annie lived there. There were two kings and a beautiful queen and an annoying prince. Then there was Annie. Evil came, smelling sharp and shrieking in pain, and the palace broke apart.

In the storms, Annie got caught up and whirled away.

Annie's in exile now with a broken queen who looks more and more every day like the Ice Witch. There are no kings and the prince has gone to join a black-eyed queen with cheekbones like scalpels.

Annie shouldn't be here, but things happen by accident all the time.

Annie doesn't believe her own stories, but she likes making them anyway.

The others have their own stories, which are full of gaps and silences through which Annie strains to understand.

The people she knows and loves have different names now. Daddy, Mommy, and Uncle Christian change their names lightning-fast. Mattie is called Matt now, sometimes Matthew if Mom's really mad at him.

Newly named, they're different people now. Strangers and characters.

In the old house, there were simple names: Mommy, Daddy, Mattie, and Uncle Christian.

Now, they can be the Ice Witch, the Two Feuding Kings, and Prince Matthew.

In his stories, Matt calls them all by their first names: Julia, Sean, and Christian. Plain, hard names that mean something else entirely. Matt tells her very strange stories about them all. About Ava, the dark queen, about Julia, Sean, and Christian.

Mommy tells her soggy, confusing stories about lost love and fatal misunderstandings. She strokes Annie's hair too hard while she talks and Annie's scalp starts to burn as her eyes water.

Everyone wears new masks. A waltzing succession of masks, swooping in and out, making up stories that spin off and keep on multiplying. Masks and faces and stories are, Annie thinks, like the bright bits at the bottom of a kaleidoscope. Each spin and shift in perspective makes a new pattern composed of the same elements, all trapped together.

Matt talks to her at night, facing the window, looking out. Actually, that's not really true. He talks to the night outside much more than to her. He doesn't live here, not really, but he comes by. When he does come, it's always late at night. After the first time, Annie pretends to be asleep.

"What are you doing?" she asked the first time, sitting straight up, forgetting the story she had been telling herself about a black jungle cat and vines that writhed and wept.

Matt shook his head and punched his thigh. "Shut up, would you?"

"No," Annie said. "It's my room. What do you want?"

"Nothing." But then he sat on the edge of her desk and turned his face toward the window, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Mattie, what's going on?"

"You don't know anything," he said.

"Sure I do." She wanted to ask him again, but Matt's shoulders were hunched and his chin tucked down against his chest. He looked like he was cold, cold and angry, and Annie bit her lip.

"Stupid," Matt said after a while, his shoulders loosening. "You're just a stupid kid."

"Shut up. I know _a lot_ \--"

"You wanna know the real story?" he asked, cutting her off, never looking over.

Annie thought about it. Matt hardly ever talked to her any more; he'd been really nice for a couple weeks after that tampon made her sick, but then he went back to normal. Lately, now that she lived in the apartment and he came and went, she missed him. "Yes."

"Then shut up."

So Matt talks to her, some nights, but she has to be quiet. Annie knows how to do that. She lies on her back and keeps her eyes closed, listening to him and watching the colors spin and change behind her lids. If she pretends she's dead, or Sleeping Beauty, she can stay still like that for hours. She's measured that, just like she's practiced holding her breath underwater in the tub in case Daddy ever takes her swimming with sharks. Practice and preparation are really important, she thinks. You never know when things are going to start roaring and breaking apart.

She is still Annie, but everyone else has two, three, four different names. Maybe she is different, too, even if she's called by the same name. She _feels_ different, and she doesn't really like spaghetti any more, and she would rather stay awake at night than sleep.

Even in her old house, the one where Daddy/Sean/one-of-the-kings still lives, Annie doesn't sleep like she used to.

Her old room is missing things, so it's too big and feels hollow. Things are gone, and have new names. Old faces but new stories, strange meanings that she tries to hunt down and trap before the jungle closes in.

So when she creeps toward the kitchen for some juice and peeks into the living room, Annie doesn't know who or what she's seeing or what's happening. The light from the TV is blue like ice, slicing through the dark, catching two figures as they move and whisper urgently.

If it's Sean and Christian grappling there in the glow, they're swearing at each other and arms are flailing, fists making contact, and _hate_ boils through the room.

If it's the two kings, they argue over the kingdom, because there's only room enough for one king.

If it's Daddy and Uncle Christian, then they're wrestling like they used to, laughing and spilling bottles of beer, panting like horses after a race.

But as Annie rubs her eyes, blinks again, and squeezes her glass of juice so hard her sweaty hand squeaks against it, she knows the story is different.

Because it's two men over there. Strangers with contorted faces, speaking a language that mutters and gasps as they clutch at each other's arms in the cold blue light. Profiles painted cornflower and silver, their mouths are open, showing wet black tongues, and Annie hasn't breathed since opening her eyes.

The men are kissing, crashing together, and kisses do more than wake or send to sleep. They transform, and the men change as they kiss. Become the doubled-figure, one person now, a single king with two heads and four arms, sinking to the floor.

Annie steps backward, eyes wide open, and knows that she should go back to bed.

She can't move, though. There's always more. Stories, names, sights, always more than you expect.

 

 

 


End file.
